Master mariner and prominent figure in the North Sea oil industry

Born: January 16, 1943;

Died: December 15, 2017

CAPTAIN John Leggett, who has died aged 74, was a master mariner and a prominent figure in the North Sea oil industry. He held several senior management positions at the giant terminal complex at Flotta in Orkney, including planning and directing operations for loading crude-oil and gas tankers. Later he was a consultant on the design of India's first liquefied natural gas import terminal on the Gulf of Khambat.

Mr Leggett was the son of RAF pilot Thomas Leggett who was lost to enemy action over France in August, 1944, so he never knew his father. His mother Winfred re-married in 1951 and his step-father Charles Philips encouraged his sporting prowess, especially cycling, a life-long leisure pursuit.

He did not really enjoy school life, but he found chemistry interesting and was unsure of his future when he attended a careers convention in London. There the 16-year-old learned of the opportunities of becoming a deck apprentice in the Merchant Navy and for most of the 1960s, learned the ropes with London & Overseas Freighters.

By the early 1970s he was working for Chevron Tank-ships (UK) and before long was sailing as master of super-tankers of up to 270,00 tonnes. He had undertaken pilotage qualifications and certificates for ship-to-ship liquid cargo transfers off the Bahamas and the company sent him to monitor the building of its new super-tankers at a ship-yard in Nagasaki, Japan.

By late 1974, Mr Leggett and his wife Wilma's daughter Jemma had arrived and the young captain was considering using his qualifications and experience for a shore posting.

By then, North Sea oil had begun to be exploited and, in conversation in the bar of the John O'Groats House Hotel, Mr Leggett heard that the operators of the new giant oil terminal at Flotta, Scapa Flow, just ten miles across the Pentland Firth, were shortly to be advertising for professional marine staff.

Mr Leggett moved quickly and by 1976 he found himself as the terminal operator's first maritime recruit, prior to its official inauguration by the then energy minister Tony Benn in early 1977.

The young Leggett family moved to Kirkwall, Orkney and Mr Leggett was steadily promoted during his 18-year stint there from mooring master to the top rank as the complex's marine superintendent. In that position, he became responsible for managing the massive terminal's marine operations.

In 1995 he was appointed to the Cromarty Firth as berthing master at the Nigg Oil Terminal, where he had responsibility for establishing liquid-cargo ship-to-ship transfers and many other aspects of safe port operations. Two years later, he began offering his expertise and experience internationally as an independent marine consultant.

He established first-class professional relationships with Indian colleagues and he was selected as a key consultant on the liquefied natural gas terminal on the Gulf of Khambat.

India's economy had suffered for decades from lengthy power-cuts and the concept was to import liquefied natural gas in specialist tankers at very low temperatures from Qatar. Mr Leggett's tasks included drafting safe start-up and operational procedures there.

Cycling was Mr Leggett's lifelong passion, from his days as a teenage local champion. Amongst others, he cycled Land's End to John O'Groats, did a non-competitive stage of the Tour de France, and took part in charity rides from London to Paris, the Etape Caledonia and the MS150, from Houston to Austin, Texas, USA.

He is survived by Wilma, their daughter Jemma, and his grandchildren.

BILL MOWAT